Peru: Salkantay to Machu Picchu – Day 2

Part 2 of 5

After a surprisingly solid night’s sleep Graham and I awoke at about the same time, pried the tent open and enjoyed the view out the door into clear skies and dryish fields.  Our chai wallas, Edwin and Jose, arrived with hot water, mugs and a variety of teas, including coca, at 6:30 am-ish and we had an amusing time drinking our tea and listening to the wallas trying to wake the girls up.

 

Breakfast at 7am was delayed till about 7:30 since the girls needed time to wake up sufficiently.  Graham discovered that the poor things had been so cold that they had put on every stitch of clothing they had brought:

Before breakfast Graham and I enjoyed the incredible views of the surrounding mountains, the highest being Umantay (“Oo-man-tie”) on the right as we looked up valley and Salkantay to the left.  As the sun rose the shadows shifted creating all new ooh and ahhh moments. 

The trek today took us from Huayracmachay (aka Poo Valley) to Collpapampa for lunch and then on down to an unnamed settlement set above the roaring Salkantay River and just across from a waterfall.

We set off a little later than planned by our guide, Edwin, as photos had to be taken, the magic rock had to be visited and bags had to be packed.  Once under way we were all pleasantly surprise to find that our legs were in good shape despite all the uphill grinding and downhill pounding of the day before.

Today we descended down into the cloud forest albeit very different than those of Costa Rica.  The weather turned quickly warm and a little humid and that was the last we saw of our warmish (in Graham’s and my cases) clothes and our waterproof gear for the duration of the trip.  We still carried it but never used it.

The scenery changed from rocky, scrubby, muddy to dry, lush green and sometimes rocky.  Flowers abounded, orchids, bromeliads, lupines, flowers with Quechua names that of course I can’t remember, butterflies everywhere.  The trail generally trended downwards and we pounded along at a fair pace, stopping from time to time to admire the views, look at flowers and let the ladies catch up.  The downhill bits were periodically treacherous and this slowed them down.  Graham and I being manly men just plunged on.

We arrived at Collcapampa at about 12pm and watched the ladies of the village playing soccer  while the cook got things ready. The cook/drover/mule team, being locals, make amazing time.  They travel the same distance we do in about one third of the time.  So needless to say they have to sit around and wait for us turistas to catch up.  Lunch was delish but carb heavy, not all that bad considering we still had 8k to go.

We took off again and quickly rounded down the newly carved cliff-hugging road.  The only problem with this road is that the idea of engineering seems to have totally escaped the planners.  They have carved a road into a 70 degree slope.  This would be ok if the slope was solid rock, but no, it is sandy rocky crap prone to unraveling.  So much so that the road has collapsed entirely over an eighty foot section that we had to scramble over.  This after we had already crossed over several other small rubble piles that had sloughed off onto the road.  Our guide said we had to run.  We were dismayed, what sort of organization is this we all wondered.

 

Our courage was bolstered by watching a group of mules cross over.

And then we were off and running down the trail, well, we had to cross the river and then we discovered that shortly thereafter the trail split.  Our guide selected the high road which meant another lung-busting climb but the alternative was to go down and possibly discover that the low road was yet to be repaired from the winter floods (good call as you shall see).

The rest of the hike was pretty mellow, gorgeous scenery, more flowers and butterflies, waterfalls, roaring rivers and so on.  What a rough life eh? 

The sun had already gone down behind the mountains when we reached our campsite for the night to discover that while there was a site there was no camp.  Edwin was most perturbed, he said that this was the place they always camped at and was at a loss to say why the rest of our team was not there. 

 

The day was turning cool and Graham and I were discussing how much we would have to pay the family who lived above the camp ground to rent blankets and their tienda for the night when Jose and the muleteers and mules turned up.  Turns out they had missed the fork in the trail where we had taken the high road.  They went down, found the road still washed out, hiked back up to the bridges below the landslide and crossed over to the road we had seen on the other side of the valley from us.  They had then boogied all the way down to a ford way down stream from the camp and back, all told adding something like 10 or 15 km to their day.  They still insisted on pitching the tents and such much to our amazement.  Luckily the campsite tienda sold beer so we bought them some (and us of course).

We turned in later than usual, the stars were magnificent, the river and nearby waterfall were roaring away and contentment spread over us lulling us off to sleep and what was to be a late start the next day.